Apple rolls out 3 features to secure iMessage, Apple ID and iCloud data

Apple announced 3 new features that are designed to increase the privacy of user data. Among them are physical keys for authorization in Apple ID, end-to-end data encryption in iCloud and additional user authentication in iMessage. Let's talk about everything in order.

Physical security keys

Apple notes that it successfully implemented two-factor authentication back in 2015, and now 95% of users have it enabled, making it the most popular such system in the world. Now you can secure your Apple ID even better with third-party physical security keys.

This means that instead of a confirmation code from another device, for the second stage of authentication, you will need to connect a real security key to the smartphone connector - or bring an NFC tag. This is safer as it protects against hackers and scammers who use phishing to get security codes.

Advanced iCloud data protection

Apple is already actively using end-to-end encryption to protect 14 types of data users. With the introduction of the new system, it will be possible to securely store 23 types of information, including cloud backups, notes and photos. Only data from "Mail", "Contacts" and "Calendar" will remain overboard, since these services need to access global databases.

End-to-end encryption means that in order to decrypt the data, you need to have physical access to the device on which you are authorized to log into your account.

Checking Contact Keys in iMessage

To make sure that you are communicating with the person you wanted to write to, you can request verification of the contact key. This is a code that will be displayed for both participants in the correspondence, you can compare it when calling or in person. You may have seen this when calling Telegram: the interlocutors display a chain of emoji, which you can compare and make sure that you are not being eavesdropped. If you suspect that someone has accessed your account from another device, a corresponding warning will be displayed at the bottom of the chat.

This feature is aimed primarily at journalists, activists and members of the government, but will be available to ordinary users as well.

All three new features will be available to users worldwide in 2023. At the same time, Apple refused to force verification of photos in iCloud, announced in 2021 and received massive criticism from users and experts.